Desperate refugees from Kosovo faced painful delays at border crossings yesterday as they fled Yugoslav forces inflicting what NATO described as a "modern-day great terror".
As international alarm rose and governments scrambled to mobilise aid, France called for an emergency European conference to tackle the humanitarian crisis.
The United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, joined Western governments and NATO in accusing the Yugoslavs of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
"We do believe that there is a campaign of ethnic cleansing, quite well organised, with people being pushed out of their homes and the border being simultaneously opened so they can leave," a spokesman, Mr Kris Janowski, said in Geneva. He added that 90,000 refugees had left Kosovo in the past week.
NATO put the total at 118,000. It described them as victims of a "modern-day great terror" comparable with Khmer Rouge atrocities in 1970s Cambodia.
Western diplomats, quoting Kosovo Albanian sources, said Yugoslav government tanks and artillery launched a three-pronged attack yesterday on a valley in central Kosovo where 50,000 ethnic Albanians were sheltering.
Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro - all among Europe's poorest regions - have borne the brunt of the exodus. Albania alone says it has accepted about 70,000.
Macedonia said yesterday the influx had been so great that it was forced to close its borders. About 22,300 Kosovo refugees have been registered in Macedonia, but the country could not take more than 20,000, the Deputy Prime Minister, Ms Radmila Kiprijanova, said.
Skopje fears an influx of Kosovars will destabilise the country, where one-third of the two million inhabitants are Albanian and unemployment is at 40 per cent.
The Albanian President, Mr Rexhep Meidani, urged Italy, Greece and other neighbours to help.
"I appeal to all international organisations and to the international community to help these refugees, who are living under the most dangerous conditions. It is important now to save them," he told Reuters in an interview.
The French Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, said: "The European Union should urgently convene a humanitarian conference to define the European response and offer aid, including money and equipment, to the countries welcoming the refugees."
At Blace, the main crossing point from Kosovo into Macedonia, sluggish bureaucracy forced hundreds to sleep overnight in a no-man's land between the two territories.
Refugees have given harrowing accounts of burning, looting and killing by Serb forces. "I slept in a truck along with dozens of other people," said Ms Sabila Joshira, who fled with two children from near the southern Kosovo town of Prizren. "Every night we heard shooting, explosions and bombs. It was awful."
Ms Leman Kamberi said she paid 1,000 German marks (about £400) in bribes at checkpoints set up by Serb police and masked civilians, and then waited for more than 15 hours to cross into Macedonia.
Hundreds of cars, two abreast, queued along the 750 metres of road between the two border posts, and a line of traffic stretched back almost a mile into Serbia, she said.
"This is the best we can do," said a border police official.
"We didn't plan for this. Why should they complain, at least we are accepting them," said his colleague. "This is their only hope."
Macedonia and Montenegro, which is part of Yugoslavia, both fear the big influx of ethnic Albanians will upset their ethnic balance and provoke unrest.
"A huge flow of refugees, who due to the war have been deprived of everything, could now cause political destruction in Montenegro," said the country's President, Mr Milo Djukanovic.
But he insisted that his liberal, Western-leaning government was not about to close its borders. The main crossing point from Kosovo into Albania was shut for 14 hours by Yugoslav guards but reopened at noon.
A spokeswoman for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said the influx was lower than on Monday, when 4,000 refugees were arriving every hour. Only 200 refugees crossed in the first hour after the post was reopened.
Germany announced 25 million marks (£10 million) worth of emergency aid, and the European Union said it was releasing a further £7 million. Britain said an emergency flight was leaving yesterday with tents and blankets for refugees, while Germany was flying out food and medicine.
The European Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs, Ms Emma Bonino, is due to fly to Macedonia today to inspect refugee camps.
NATO said yesterday it was checking allegations by the aid agency CARE Australian that at least nine refugees were killed when allied jets bombed two of its centres in Yugoslavia overnight.